Free to View Sport do you have it in your country IRFU

When Green Party, Minister, Eamon Ryan put forward proposals that the big six games such as Heineken Cup fixtures involving Leinster and Munster should be aired free on our national channels such as RTE and TV3, the now disgraced John O’Donoghue TD was vocal in his opposition. John O’Donoghue TD was supporting the view of the IRFU that such free to view games could have a significant impact on the revenue of the IRFU, however, like O’Donoghue the IRFU has enjoyed the benefits of vast sums of Irish Tax Payers money to feather their own nest, and the majority of us think its time we got something in return.

Still John O’Donoghue AKA ‘Mr Zero Tolerance’ AKA ‘Junket John’, has never been afraid to speak out both sides of his mouth when it comes to feathering his own nest. During O’Donoghue’s five years as Minister for Arts, Sports and Tourism, O’Donoghue enjoyed dozens of games free to view as he was invited to red carpet treatment by the IRFU to both Landsdowne Road and Croke Park. The Kerry wind bag certainly knows how to spend tax payer’s money, but would deny the same tax payers an opportunity to watch the IRFU games free on national television.

O’Donoghue was forced to resign last year as Ceann Comhairle (Chairperson) of the Dail when it was uncovered that he had spent vast fortunes of tax payer’s money paying for himself and his wife to stay in top hotels and charge everything to the tax payer including Gondala rides and fancy hats. O’Donoghue did not only enjoy games free to view at home, indeed, he has also travelled abroad for big matches, on one occasion requesting the Government jet at a cost of 30,000 Euro to the tax payer.

One could say that Junket John’s squandering of tax payers money is laughable, however, this squandering and waste took place at a time when Irish children were being abused as they had no access to child care professionals due to lack of funding, it was at a time when prisoners with the potential to rehabilitate were denied that rehabilitation due to lack of funding, a time when our elderly are being abused in places of ‘care’ due to lack of funding, the list is endless and the furnace of hell will burn well into the night.

When I tried to contact John O’Donoghue today I was told that he was gone to a match.

When it involves a national team, yes I think they should all be broadcast on RTE. RTE can save the money the spend on proper sports by not covering the Gaelic Football Championship. Even though I have Sky Sports (because I have to to see Ireland) I dislike their patronizing coverage of Irish games, particularly soccer friendlies.

This comment can be wholly disregarded. Can you honestly consider the Gaelic football as not constituting a proper sport? Also how can all national team sports be provided on free-to-air? WIth the exception of soccer, rugby and gaelic football, only a negligible proportion of the public would be attracted to other sports. I would not go so far as to call these other sports improper. The Television WIthout Frontiers Directive and the Audiovisual Media Services Directive enable the Minister for Communications draw up a list of events of "major importance to society" that should be made available to a "substantial proportion of the public." Only 8 countries have enacted this voluntary Directive including Ireland. Our country is already streets ahead of most other countries in providing for free-to-air coverage of sports events. The notion of providing free-to-air coverage of all national team events is ridiculous and lacks any logic.

I feel theisishobserver may be more qualified to respond to this post.

Here in Qatar, the World Cup is free to air (but not always live) if you're OK with Arabic commentary. For commentary in English, French, and Arabic but guaranteed live, Jazeera is charging a moderate fee for the decoder card for a dedicated World Cup channel. That seems pretty fair to me, after all, we're visitors here.